No One Like Rose
by mytardislandedinnightvale
Summary: When Rose and the Doctor land on the pristine, three-mooned planet of Gahlm, it appears to be abandoned- the perfect place for the couple to relax a while. But when a primitive spaceship full of aliens kidnaps Rose, both she and the Doctor find themselves in terrible danger. How far will the Doctor go to save the love of his life?
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is my very first Doctor Who fanfiction! I would be extremely grateful if you guys would leave some comments as to what I'm doing right, what I can improve on, etc. Thanks! :) -Jamie

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.

"Doctor, hurry up!" Rose called from the doorway of the TARDIS.

"Right, yeah, coming," puffed the Doctor, jogging along the orange grass to where his ship was parked, taking one last look at the bright yellow sky of Tibulon 689. It was really a beautiful planet, he thought to himself, never mind the jagged-toothed natives that had attempted to kill both him and his...girlfriend. The word still seemed odd to him, though he wasn't sure if it was because he'd never really used it or because Rose seemed to be so much more than just a girlfriend to him. He had lived such a long life- nine hundred and five years- and never once had he found anyone or anything that made him feel like she did. He had felt more alive in the past three years than he had in the previous nine hundred and two.

"Doctor, I swear, if you don't walk through this doorway in ten seconds, I'm leaving without you!" Rose's good-natured threat broke the Doctor's wandering train of throught, bringing him back to the fields of Tibulon 689 with a start.

"You don't know how to fly the TARDIS yet," he replied, stepping inside and shutting the door. A smile broke through his serious face when he saw Rose, already at the controls of the ship with her hands poised over the buttons.

"Well, I'm learning," she shot back, returning his smile. "I got us off the ground today, didn't I?"

"Technically, you got us off the ground six thousand years ago, and it was one of the bumpiest takeoffs I've ever endured," he answered. "But you're right. You're learning."

He stepped up behind her, gently taking hold of her hands. "Do you remember what to do?" he asked, trying to ignore the faint _zing_ of electricity that zipped up his arms from where his hands touched hers. There would be plenty of time for that later.

"I think so," she replied, hesitantly reaching out to flip a switch. She looked behind her, making sure she had it right, and the Doctor nodded.

"Go ahead," he said encouragingly. "Enter your coordinates." A look of delight came over her face.

"We can go anywhere?" she asked. "No world-saving to do? Just us?"

"Just us," the Doctor confirmed. "Anywhere in the universe." He stepped back to let Rose take control of the ship, and she began pressing the lighted buttons on the control panel. The prospect of her flying the TARDIS still made him a bit nervous. The first time she'd tried, she'd nearly tipped it over on its side before she got it off the ground. Nevertheless, she'd observed for long enough. It was time she learned to fly the thing, as she'd said many times.

She flipped another switch and turned to the computer, entering a series of numbers as the Doctor watched carefully. The engines began to whoosh, and Rose stepped away from the control panel with an _oh please let me have done that right _look on her face.

Suddenly, the TARDIS lurched upwards, throwing Rose into the Doctor's arms. He steadied her, and then began pressing buttons on the control panel. This was the part that he hadn't yet taught Rose: navigation. The TARDIS would get them where they needed to go without fail, but there were always codes that needed to be entered to regulate the ship when passing through hostile atmospheres.

And just as suddenly as it had taken off, the TARDIS landed with another whoosh. Rose sighed in relief. "We didn't crash," she commented, and the Doctor laughed.

"No, we didn't!" he said, happy to see her ecstatic face. "You did wonderfully." Nothing made him happier than seeing Rose happy, and it seemed to work the other way as well. When she had first found him, wandering the skies alone, she had seemed so afraid. Afraid that his look of shock was not due to the fact that she was inside the TARDIS despite being trapped in a parallel universe, but due to the fact that she had changed. She had explained this to him: She had been afraid that he wouldn't want her anymore. But when the shock had faded from his face, replaced by the unbelievable joy, the same expression had been mirrored in her face. She was home at last. His at last.

"Don't you want to see where we are?" Rose asked, pulling the Doctor out of his thoughts once again.

"'Course I do!" he said cheerfully. "Lead the way, Rose Tyler."

She opened the door to the TARDIS and gestured at the outside. "After you," she said, smiling at him.

He stepped through the doorway and the night breeze ruffled his hair. Rocks crunched under his Converse as he walked. Over the sound of the rich indigo waves crashing, he heard Rose closing the door of the TARDIS. He turned around to see her walking toward him, her smile as bright as the three bright blue moons suspended in the night sky. He reached out for her hand and she took it, falling into step with him.

"Where are we?" he asked her.

"Gahlm, in the year six billion," she replied. "I've been doing a little reading on all the different planets in those books of yours. I'm not sure when exactly they were written, but one of them said that this planet was uninhabited after the War of Five Billion Six Hundred Thousand Sixty Two Five Hundred Fifty Seven...oh, Doctor, I'm sorry."

She had seen it in his eyes- that flash of pain. The pain that came around when any war was mentioned; the pain that made him look thousands of years old. The only pain that she knew would never go away for the man she loved. It was a pain he carried with him every day, and there was nothing she could do.

The Doctor closed his eyes. Memories of the Daleks flashed before him. The Cybermen. The Time Lords. Every war he had ever been through, flashing by in a matter of seconds. All that death, always seeming to follow him. All that suffering, always seeming to be some fault of his. Always, no matter what.

He felt the slight pressure of Rose's hand squeezing his. Rose, his anchor to reality. Rose, the only one who could bring him back when he felt like this. He opened his eyes and manged a smile. "It's all right, love," he said quitely. "Not your fault."

Rose pressed her lips together, fighting tears. She and the Doctor were connected now, mentally. If they wanted to, they could join together into one single consciousness, something not even the Doctor understood. Once, when he had gone into that awful state of glassy-eyed rememberance, looking back over the wars he'd experienced, she had timidly edged her own mind up next to his, and seen what he was remembering. She had jerked back, terrified of the noise and death and screams. Shaking, she had curled up by his side and waited for him to come back to her. She never did it again.

And now, standing here on the beach of Gahlm, she did the one thing she knew would comfort him. She wrapped her arms around her Doctor and kissed him gently until she felt his lips soften against hers.

He kissed her back with what little strength he had, wishing he could be a better, stronger man for his Rose, but knowing that she loved him as he was. For some reason, she loved all of him, even the broken bits that hid themselves behind the happy majority, and that was enough for him.

And as they slept that night, curled up in each other's arms on a rock, surrounded by sea and sand and stars, a creature watched them from the sky. Soon, it thought to itself, they would both be dead.

The sound of its laughter was lost in the crashing of the waves.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor's eyes snapped open suddenly, screams echoing in his mind. He tried desperately to stop shaking so that he wouldn't wake Rose, but it was too late. She stirred in his arms, the steady pattern of her breathing already broken. "Doctor?" she murmured sleepily. "Are you all right?"

"Go back to sleep, my love," the Doctor said, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice. He kissed her forehead to comfort her and ease her worry so that she could drift easily off to sleep. But instead, she levered herself up on one arm, blinking in the dim blue light from the moons in the sky.

"Those nightmares of yours are getting worse, aren't they? she asked him softly, and leaned down to kiss a stray tear from his cheek. He hadn't realized that he'd been crying in his sleep, and he hastily reached up to swipe at his face.

"Yes," he admitted grudgingly. "Every night." He reached up to brush a lock of hair behind Rose's cheek. Catching the worried look on her face, he quickly added, "I'll be all right. Please don't worry."

"Is it always the same dream, Doctor?" Rose asked.

It took a moment before the Doctor could speak. Memories and fragmented images flew across his mind, and he closed his eyes briefly. "Yes," he repeated in a whisper. "I dream of Gallifrey burning, Rose. Every night in my mind, I remember the entire thing." He swallowed and opened his eyes to look at Rose's anxious eyes. "Every night I watch my home catch fire and burn. And there's nothing I can do to stop it, nothing I can do to save it. I can only stand helpless as the place I was born burns away to nothing."

"How long has it been now, that this has been happening?" Rose asked, hating to see the love of her life in this much pain. "What can I do? How can I help?"

"Two weeks," the Doctor replied. "But, Rose...there's nothing you can do. I can't figure out why I dream like this every night." He paused, looking out at the stars over the indigo water. "They're only dreams, Rose. I'm sorry I've worried you." He squeezed her hand. "If I can wake up with you by my side, I'll be all right."

Unconvinced but too sleepy to argue the point more, Rose laid her head back down on the Doctor's chest, and allowed him to wrap his arms back around her, snuggling up close to his side. "I love you," she whispered. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths as his two hearts thumped softly under her cheek.

"As I love you," he answered, kissing her closed eyelids. She sighed contentedly. In no time, she was asleep, oblivious to the racing mind of her Doctor.

He lay awake under the beautiful star-filled sky, trying to pick out where Gallifrey had been. No doubt it was still burning, though there was nothing left. Somehow, Gallifrey still burned out there, yet he couldn't see it. He felt it, though. It would always burn, never again hosting any kind of life. The Doctor knew this.

_I will never have a home,_ he thought. Normally, he tried to avoid letting his mind slip into this kind of negativity, but he could let his guard down now that Rose was asleep. Every day, he had to protect her from who he truly was inside. Make no mistake, Rose made him happier than he'd been in a long time- perhaps his whole life. But there were holes in both of the Doctor's hearts, things not even Rose could fix. Old battle scars, beginning to reopen and bleed afresh. He wouldn't let Rose see him like this. He couldn't.

The nightmares had first started when Rose was ripped from his grasp after the war between the Daleks and the Cybermen, though at that point they weren't of Gallifrey. They didn't even make sense back then; they were just images of all the enemies he'd made in his lifetime, flashing by so quickly that sometimes he couldn't even distinguish between them. One thing was common among every nightmare, though: the moment Rose lost her grip on the lever in the Torchwood Tower always showed up. At least once a night, it replayed itself for the Doctor, reminding him that Rose was gone and he had never told her he loved her.

The Doctor closed his eyes, remembering the day she had finally come back...


	3. Chapter 3 (Three Years Previously)

_Floating._

_Floating through time and space, suspended among the stars. The Doctor didn't care anymore._

_Six months, he thought to himself. It had been six months. More or less, anyway. Six months he'd been without Rose._

_Rose. It hurt to think of her name, but it hurt even worse to think of her laugh, her smile, her voice saying his name. It hurt to dream of her. The moment she lost her grip on that wretched lever made an appearance in his nightmares every bloody night. Every night, he had to watch her let go, had to watch her be ripped away from him, screaming as she was carried on a violent wind into a parallel universe. Trapped forever, never to return to him._

_He had tried traveling with another companion, Martha, but things had gotten so complicated with her. She'd gone home, and the Doctor was on his own once again, a lonely man wandering the universe._

_Two weeks previously, an asteroid had very nearly hit the TARDIS. The Doctor had steered out of the way, but it was a narrow miss. Only afterwards, when he was safely floating through the universe again, did he think to himself what would have happened had he just let the asteroid hit him. He wouldn't have to miss Rose anymore, nor suffer through the constant nightmares- every enemy he'd ever encountered in his life, always ending with Rose's desperate cries as she was torn from him._

_But he was the last of the Time Lords. And so he lived on, albeit grudgingly._

_The Doctor walked over to the computer and glanced at the screen to see what was outside his ship. It was a standard view: stars, a lone supernova in the distance. Nothing had changed for the Doctor since he had last checked the computer. _

_And just as that thought crossed his mind, everything changed._

_At that moment, just as the Doctor turned away from the computer, the TARDIS lurched violently, huge shocks of energy coming through every few seconds. The Doctor scrambled over to the control panel and began frantically pressing buttons, trying to right the ship, but to no avail. The TARDIS shook as though it were on solid ground experiencing an earthquake. There was nothing the Doctor could do but grab hold of a handle and hang on for dear life. He shut his eyes, hoping with all his might that he wasn't under attack._

_Just as suddenly as the episode had began, everything was calm again._

_The Doctor opened his eyes, and nearly choked. _

_Standing there on the grate, apparently solid, was Rose._

_Rose. His Rose. The Rose that was supposed to be trapped in the parallel universe. The Rose that had been trapped there for six months. The Rose that, if his eyes were to be believed, was here in front of him right at this very moment._

_Her expression was somewhat afraid as she looked into the eyes of her Doctor. "It's me," she said, breaking the silence between the two. The Doctor looked like he was about to faint, and she took a step towards him in case she needed to steady him. "It's me," she repeated. "Rose."_

_The Doctor stretched out one trembling hand, and laid it on her cheek. She was warm and solid, and her cheek heated at his touch. Hardly daring to believe even his own nerve endings, he whispered in a shaking voice, "Rose...is it really you?"_

_"I'm here, Doctor," she said in a voice barely above the volume of his. "I'm here with you. It's really me."_

_"But..." the Doctor said weakly, his hand still on her cheek, "How?"_

_"Mickey and Jake and I have been working for months on those transporters from Torchwood Tower," Rose replied. "Before I-" and here she winced- "left, a piece of the TARDIS fell off. Just a tiny little piece of metal and a screw. I didn't tell you, because it didn't seem to cause any damage, but I still had it in my pocket when we got seperated." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I showed it to Mickey and Jake and they messed with it a little. Turns out, it carried a sort of code attached to the TARDIS. We figured out how to hook it up to the transporter so that when the time came, I would transport straight into the TARDIS, wherever it was. Sorry about all the shaking, by the way. It took a massive amount of energy to get here." _

_Slowly, as if he were dreaming, the Doctor lifted his other hand and placed it on Rose's other cheek. "Rose Tyler," he said in a low voice, "I love you." A sob broke in his chest. "My God, Rose, you're home."_

_Tears filled Rose's eyes as she wrapped her arms around the Doctor's neck and pulled him close. "I'm home," she whispered in his ear. "I'm right here with you, and I love you too."_

_The Doctor pulled back from their embrace and looked into her eyes for a split second before he kissed her fiercely. She kissed him back, matching his frantic need for the two of them to be as close as possible, as soon as possible._

_She fumbled with his shirt, trying to get the buttons undone without ever stopping their kiss. He reached down and helped her, throwing his shirt behind him as they broke the kiss for just a second so he could fumble with hers. The instant it was off, she kissed him again, the fire inside her fierce and burning all the way down to her toes, blazing brighter every second. _

_The Doctor's hearts beat out of time, faster than they had ever beat before. He knew there was one thing they needed before this went any further, and so he broke the kiss again and virtually sprinted to the other side of the TARDIS. He kept an old quilt from his childhood somewhere back there, he knew he spotted it, and as quickly as he could, rushed back to Rose, and laid it out on the floor. _

_As gently as he could, he laid Rose down on the quilt and laid down beside her to resume their kiss. It was slower now, deeper, less frantic and desperate. The fire still burned within both of them, but it burned slower now, smoldering instead of blazing. _

_As suddenly as they had been seperated so many months ago, they were one._


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Oh my God, guys, don't kill me. I am SO sorry I haven't updated in forever. Been busy with school and some personal stuff and just really haven't had the time or energy to work on this. But anyway it's 1 AM and I can't sleep so I figured I'd come update this thing. Here's Chapter 4 :)**

Rose woke slowly, not bothering to open her eyes just yet. Instead, she listened to the roar of the waves and the steady thumping of the Doctor's hearts, comforting and quiet.

The thumping got louder, and Rose opened her eyes in confusion. The thumping seemed to be coming from the sky, almost like wings. She looked up and nearly screamed.

As soon as it saw Rose looking at it, it opened its beak and let out a terrible screech. There was a sudden flash of light, and the steel bird was gone. But it was too late- Rose had already seen its red eyes, its ten-meter wingspan. This planet, she thought to herself, appeared to be somewhat less than uninhabited.

At the sound of the bird's screech, the Doctor had sat bolt upright, sonic screwdriver already in his hand. "Rose?" he asked, not taking his eyes off of the sky. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Rose replied, sitting up and trying to keep the tremble out of her voice. She cleared her throat. "Whatever that creature was, it sure didn't look friendly."

"I didn't see it," the Doctor said, finally looking at Rose. "What did it look like?"

"Big steel bird," she told him, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. "Wings about five meters each, red eyes. Ring any bells?"

His eyes opened wide at her description. "That's not a creature," he said. "That's a mode of transport. It was built thousands of years ago by a race called the Gaxicans to get around the universe. It's like the TARDIS, only a bit more primitive. My guess is, it followed us here, although from where, I'm not sure."

"What are the Gaxicans?" Rose asked. "Oh, and I forgot to say-" She leaned over and kissed him, then rested her forehead against his so their noses touched. "Good morning."

He smiled, closing his eyes. "Good morning, my love."

They were silent for a few moments, leaning gently against each other, until Rose drew back and looked at her Doctor seriously. "Gaxicans?" she asked.

"Oh, right." He cleared his throat and smiled at her, running a hand through his slightly messy hair. "You scramble my brain sometimes, Rose Tyler. Anyway, the Gaxicans are creatures without legs or teleport abilities, so you would think them a fairly weak race, correct?" Rose nodded. "Well, they're not," said the Doctor descisively. "They do have arms, and they build amazing modes of transport. You should know that they're probably here because of me-"

"Aren't they all," Rose joked.

"-because they have a bit of a grudge against the Time Lords," the Doctor finished.

"Why?" Rose asked. "What happened?"

"You know how I often have to make very difficult choices in order to save one world or another?" the Doctor asked her, and she nodded again. "Well, I had to make a very difficult choice pertaining to Gaxicoricon, their planet. I saved it, but I did have to blow up an entire section of it. Long story," he added, catching Rose's confused expression. "Anyhow, they were appreciative that I saved their world, but angry too. I can understand why," he said, looking down in apparent shame. "Over forty thousand of them died, and I was responsible. It was either forty thousand or the entire population- about ten million. Still...none of them should have died. That's the most living things I have ever..." He swallowed, and then looked Rose in the eyes. "Killed."

Rose reached up and stroked his cheek. "Love, it wasn't your fault. You had to."

He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I know, I know I did. I know I had to. But it was terrible." He looked up at the sky again. "It was a terrible death, Rose. I had to vaporize them. Vaporization only takes a few seconds- but it's an awful, agonizing few seconds. I felt like a monster. I _was_ a monster. They died because of me. I'll never forgive myself for that day."

'That's one of the things you dream about, isn't it?" Rose asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said, sounding surprised. "How did you know?"

"Just wondered," she answered. She had never told the Doctor about the time she had looked into his dream. It had terrified her so much, she didn't even want to remember it. She thought to herself that the Doctor must be incredibly strong to endure that agony night after night.

"What do you think they want?" she asked, almost afraid to know.

"They probably want me dead," he answered, somewhat harshly. Noticing the flash of worry that crossed his soulmate's face, he reached out to her and pulled her close to his chest. "Nothing will happen, Rose," he promised her. "We'll talk to them. I'll make them understand. The Gaxicans never travel alone; their primary thought is family. If I can make them understand that there's a connection between me and them- that my family is also gone- we should be able to reason with them. They're not engineered to fight. They're engineered to negotiate, and if they can't do that, they flee."

"Then why did they follow us here?" Rose asked, her voice slightly muffled. She drew back to look at the Doctor. "If they're engineered to flee, and they saw the TARDIS, wouldn't they try to escape it, not go after it?" She shook her head. "Something's not adding up. As soon as I saw that bird, or spaceship, or whatever you want to call it, they were out of there. But why would it be hovering above us if they didn't want us to know they were here?"

The Doctor sighed. "I'm really not sure," he admitted. "And that's not something you hear me say often. But I haven't seen the Gaxicans since before the Time War-" and here he winced- "and I don't know what's happened to them in between then and now. They might have evolved or something. I don't know. But we have to face them, because there's no other option. If we go back to the TARDIS, they'll continue to follow us around the universe."

"Can't we outrun them?" Rose asked, part of her already knowing the answer, but still hoping.

The Doctor shook his head. "They're very intelligent creatures," he told her. "They'd figure out a way to trap us. I don't know if they've come to talk to me in peace, or if they mean us harm. I truly don't. Since the incident on Gaxicoricon, I've had zero contact with them."

Rose locked her eyes on his. "So what do we do?"

The Doctor stood up, reaching a hand out to Rose to help her up. "We go and find them," he said bravely. He took Rose's hand and together they jumped down from the rock where they had been sleeping. The Doctor started to walk towards the thick wall of trees that separated the beach from the forested rest of the small planet, but before he got far, Rose stopped and pulled gently on his hand. He turned around, coming back to her. "Rose, what is it?" he asked, concerned.

Rose said nothing, simply wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

She always felt like she had to, before they did something like this.

She never knew if she might be kissing her Doctor for the last time.


End file.
